The Waki Commission, officially The Commission of Inquiry on Post Election Violence (CIPEV), was an international commission of inquiry established by the Government of Kenya in February 2008 to investigate the clashes in Kenya following the disputed Kenyan presidential election of 2007.

Background

The Kenyan presidential election of 2007 was held in December 2007. The main contenders were incumbent President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki and his former ally

Raila Odinga Raila Amolo Odinga (born 7 January 1945) is a Kenyan politician, former Member of Parliament (MP) for Langata and businessman who served as the Prime Minister of Kenya from 2008 to 2013. He is assumed to be the Leader of Opposition in Kenya sin ...

. The election was strongly marked by

tribalism Tribalism is the state of being organized by, or advocating for, tribes or tribal lifestyles. Human evolution has primarily occurred in small hunter-gatherer groups, as opposed to in larger and more recently settled agricultural societies or civ ...

, with Kibaki coming from the most numerous

Kikuyu Kikuyu or Gikuyu (Gĩkũyũ) mostly refers to an ethnic group in Kenya or its associated language. It may also refer to: * Kikuyu people, a majority ethnic group in Kenya *Kikuyu language, the language of Kikuyu people *Kikuyu, Kenya, a town in Cent ...

ethnic group which has dominated Kenyan politics since independence and Odinga an ethnic

Luo Luo may refer to: Luo peoples and languages *Luo peoples, an ethno-linguistic group of eastern and central Africa **Luo people of Kenya and Tanzania or Joluo, an ethnic group in western Kenya, eastern Uganda, and northern Tanzania. *** Luoland, th ...

allied with other smaller ethnic groups. Kibaki was declared the winner and sworn in on 30 December, despite opposition leader Raila Odinga's claims of victory. Odinga and many international observers claimed the elections were at least partially manipulated. Following the declaration, violent protests erupted particularly in Kibera, and this included ethnic violence targeted against Kikuyu people living outside their traditional settlement areas, especially in the

Rift Valley Province Rift Valley Province ( sw, Mkoa wa Bonde la Ufa) of Kenya, bordering Uganda, was one of Kenya's eight provinces, before the Kenyan general election, 2013. Rift Valley Province was the largest and one of the most economically important provinces i ...

. Luos and

Kalenjin Kalenjin may refer to: * Kalenjin people The Kalenjin are a group of tribes designated as Highland Nilotes and are descended from Maliri people ''(thus related to Daasanach of Ethiopia.)'' The Kalenjin are cousins with Datooga people of Tan ...

were also targeted in the areas surrounding

Nakuru Nakuru is a city in the Rift Valley region of Kenya. It is the capital of Nakuru County, and was formerly the capital of Rift Valley Province. As of 2019, Nakuru had an urban and rural population of 570,674 inhabitants, making it the largest ...

and Naivasha. Former UN Secretary General

Kofi Annan Kofi Atta Annan (; 8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founde ...

brokered a power-sharing agreement which included the appointment of the Waki Commission to investigate the violence.

Composition

The chairman of the commission was Justice Philip Waki, a Judge of Kenya's Court of Appeal. The other two commission members were Gavin Alistair McFadyen, a former police assistant commissioner in New Zealand and Pascal K. Kambale, a lawyer from the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

who was working on the

Open Society Institute Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with a st ...

's Africa Governance, Monitoring and Advocacy Project. The secretary to the commission was George Mong’are Kegoro, an advocate of the High Court of Kenya and Kenyan section director of the International Commission of Jurists. The assisting counsel was David Shikomera Majanja, an advocate of the High Court of Kenya.

Report

The post-election violence report by Waki Commission, commonly known as the "Waki report", was handed over to president Mwai Kibaki and prime minister Raila Odinga on 15 October 2008. The report has 529 pages. The report however did not publicly disclose the alleged perpetrators in the report handed to the President. The Waki Commission instead handed the list of alleged perpetrators to Kofi Annan. In July 2009 Kofi Annan handed the envelope to

Luis Moreno-Ocampo Luis Moreno OcampoMoreno Ocampo's surnames are often hyphenated in English-language media to mark Moreno as a surname, not a given name. (born 4 June 1952) is an Argentine lawyer who served as the first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Co ...

, the Prosecutor at the ICC. The Kenyan Government was then given 1-year, beginning July 2009, to set up a Tribunal to deal with issue. Failure to do this would see the ICC would pick up the matter beginning August 2010.Annan did not ambush Kenya, says Justice minister
/ref> Daily Nation, 13, 20 July

Cost

In response to a query by

Joseph Lekuton Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton (born 1968 or 1969) is a Kenyan politician. He belongs to the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and was elected to represent the Laisamis Constituency in the National Assembly of Kenya since the 2007 Kenyan parliamentary ele ...

, on 16 December 2008,

Orwa Ojode Joshua Orwa Ojode (29 December 1958 – 10 June 2012) was a Kenyan politician. He was first appointed to parliament on June 28, 1994 to represent the Ndhiwa Constituency for the National Development party. In 2007 he joined the Orange Democrati ...

the Assistant Minister for Provincial Administration and Internal Security confirmed to

parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

that the commission had cost Kshs 7,635,694 with the

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

Government contributing Kshs 5,951,930 and donors contributing Kshs 1,683,764.

References

External links

Waki Report (at ReliefWeb)Waki report (at Web Archive)International Center for Transitional Justice, Kenya
{{authority control Politics of Kenya Government agencies of Kenya 2008 in Kenya